[EA] [AB] EA and Activision Blizzard Report First Quarter Financials

Star Wars: The Old Republic’s subscriber tally fell sharply as EA revised down its projections for the current fiscal year, causing stocks to plunge 5%. This contrasted better than expected reports for the first quarter of 2012. Part of the downward revision for the year was what the company referred to as a “major” game title which has been pushed out of the year. No further details on this was released.

EA reported $1.37 billion in revenue for the quarter and net income of $400 million.

“In terms of the quarter, they met expectations,” said Colin Sebastian of Robert W. Baird, adding “but I don’t think anyone was expecting a 400,000 decline in ‘Star Wars’ subscribers.”

EA said that the first quarter was driven by the recently hit release of “Mass Effect 3”, “FIFA Street 4,” “SSX” and “Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.” Star Wars: The Old Republic saw its subscriber based fall to 1.3 million at the end of the quarter down from 1.7 million at the end of December.

Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities said the numbers for “Star Wars” during the quarter suggest the game might “level off” at the 1-million-subscriber mark, compared to some earlier estimates of 1.5 million subscribers, “so the franchise is far less valuable.”

Activision Blizzard, the world’s biggest game publisher saw quarterly revenues of $1.7 billion, up from $1.5 billion last year. Net income, however, fell to $384 million from $503 million last year.